Gunman gets 40-to-life for fatal capital shooting - Last-Memories.com

The words "coward" and "cowardly" flew around a Sacramento courtroom Friday and wound up stuck on the back of convicted murderer Anthony James Winters.
Marylou Perez, the mother of the 20-year-old man Winters shot and killed on Sept. 13, 2007, in a botched pot deal, hit him with it hard and often.
"What a coward, what an absolute coward, to shoot my son in the back," Perez said, pointing at the Winters, who looked straight ahead.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Maryanne G. Gilliard's voice rose louder and sank deeper when it came her turn to verbally lash Winters.
"It certainly was a cowardly act to shoot someone in the back, someone who was unarmed at night," the judge told Winters, 22.
Gilliard then imposed a 40-to-life prison term on Winters, the result of the second-degree murder conviction a jury returned against him Dec. 3 for the shooting death of Alfredo Enriquez "Chino" Perez.
Perez was on his way to deposit money at a Wells Fargo ATM at the branch near Stockton Boulevard and Jansen Way, according to a probation report prepared for Winters' sentencing. Perez worked at a grocery store and was about to start classes at Cosumnes River College, the report said.
Sacramento police detectives arrested Winters four months after the shooting based on surveillance videos that showed him buying an energy drink at a market in the same strip mall where the bank was located and that also depicted him running out of an alcove just ahead of Perez, who died later at UC Davis Medical Center.
Detectives found a discarded energy drink can that Winters apparently set down near the shooting site. The can contained the defendant's DNA, according to the probation report.
Friends and relatives of the victim filled every seat at Friday's sentencing hearing.
"Don't let them go out at night," Marylou Perez said in a message to other parents in her victim's impact statement to the court. "Don't let them go out alone. Don't let them die."